


My Heart is Open (Beating Out of Time)

by GrumpyBones



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s & 40s, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, omg they were roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:42:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyBones/pseuds/GrumpyBones
Summary: Bucky’s always known something’s off about himself, always known the charade couldn’t last. He knew the truth would always come out, that you couldn’t force Steve not to read an open book forever. But when the dam finally breaks, and the truth rushes in, Bucky’s finally finds out what can’t be washed away.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 12
Kudos: 54





	My Heart is Open (Beating Out of Time)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this over a year ago and I'm finally in a place where I'm ready to let it go.
> 
> Huge thank you to everyone involved in making this happen: From the ones that were lovingly forced to beta, those who got to play rounds of _Dear God What Word am I Thinking of?_ , to the people who just heard the shrieking into the night.
> 
> There is an already written part two which will hopefully be following soon.

1929, The beginning

James Buchanan Barnes was twelve the first time he noticed that there was something off about himself. 

The delay in recognition could be credited to skilled camouflage, the sidewalk view of Bucky’s mindscape painted a convincing portrait of your typical Brooklyn urchin. Fluent in telling the lie of a pre-teen boy with an all-knowing smirk, he was overconfident in the way that puberty eventually beats out of oneself. Young and unconcerned with the passing of time, his summers slipped away in the form of enthusiastic rounds of capture the flag and bike rides down to the docks every Saturday, curious to see what the ships would bring in as if it had anything to do with him. He tuned in to every baseball broadcast on a radio that was in no kind of respectable shape, praying that each Dodgers game would slide into extra innings; craving the thrill that could only come from a win won late into the night. To his name he had only a few good shirts, an older sister, and more opinions than anyone in his standings really ought to have acquired. He was decent at math and openly hated it, atrocious at writing but secretly loved it, and took the long way to school every day of his life just so he could walk with Steve Rogers from around the corner. 

To summarize: Bucky was _normal._

At least he had no reason to assume otherwise until one seemingly random morning in the depth of his thirteenth June. It was the kind of day where the heat had crested too-warm well before noon; he’d woken up late to a stifling room and a throbbing feeling between his legs that was decidedly different in an inconspicuous way. He had them before, heard the older guys talking in the halls at school about what they’re supposed to be for, words like _blowing a wad_ and _having it off_ being whispered among them when the teachers weren’t lurking around. And he wondered, laying there, if this is what the mortifying ordeal of ‘The Talk’ with his Ma had all been leading up to. That conversation had left him with more questions than answers and without the ability to know which category to sort the ache burning against his thigh into. 

Step one, peeking under the covers, hadn’t been such an alarming thing and he found the nerve to reach down around it, mimicking the motion he’d seen the high schoolers use when discussing the ample contents of Sally Anderson’s sweater. 

They hadn’t been wrong, all in all it was a great looking sweater, but he forgot to think about her, too caught up in the moment, he’d tell himself later. 

Bucky jerked off for the first time while wondering if Steve ever did it too. It was the first thing to go on the list of stuff he refused to look at too closely.

* * *

_**1941 December 7th 5:12AM** _

Like most things in their life, the two of them living together is all perfectly fine until the singular moment when it very much isn’t. The fact that it had gone so well, for so many years, only meant they were due for one hell of bang. 

There’s a quiet around him, his favorite kind, as he takes the first corner back to consciousness. The distant sounds of cars in the street, of voices and footsteps separated by a concerningly thin ceiling, and the faint impression of scratching that he’s spent the last three years pretending not to realize is rats in the walls. The collective sound of home, minus the eternal griping that would signal Steve’s awoken presence. 

Bucky notes that one of his arms has gone an odd kind of comfortably numb while the other is rising and falling off pattern to his own passive breathing. That his chest feels unbearably hot in comparison to his back where the covers have been pulled off of him, the chill in the apartment giving away their unpaid heating bill. It’s impossible to ignore where the cold ghosts over his skin, making it all the more appealing to burrow his face into the warmth his nose had crowded against in his sleep, letting himself breathe in the sense of safety he’s surrounded by. As if something like that can have a certain smell about it. 

His spine is protesting, a quiet aching whine — a slew of boxing injuries capping the amount of time he can spend stagnant in one position before a disgruntled vertebrae starts submitting complaints. He bats off the half-formed desire to move, stuffing it away with a subconscious timer, weighing all the pleasurable sensations around him against the small discomfort. He’s only reached the beginning tier of awake, still chasing the span of an escaping dream — a hushed night spent down by the water, the lights from the city quelled without explanation, and Steve next to him, staring upwards, towards the vortex of stars — when he feels himself pressing against the solid form in front of him. 

Slowly, his eyes partially open instead of the all at once they normally do, his internal clock assuring that, for possibly the first time in his life, Bucky’s not running late for anything. It’s a much different experience than his normal morning panic, place and time returning as concepts in their own languid way. And he smiles, smally, thinking that maybe just once he’ll get to harass Steve from his sleep with all the bedside manner he normally receives — that is to say, none. 

He’s halfway through his own personal debate, the glory that’d be Steve’s face when he dumps a bucket of cold water on him versus the likelihood of losing yet another mattress to mold, when his brain gets stuck on a different thought where it lingers just out of reach. 

His fingers twitch where they’ve come to rest, the pad of his thumb stroking over a patch of velvety softness that’s warm like spring and confusion introduces itself with all the subtlety of a closed fist punch. The whole thing turning into a blinding 1-2 combo when hair tickles his nose on an inhale, knowing his own locks aren’t in anywhere near a dire enough state to accomplish the task, and his eyes snap open at the thought. 

It takes a moment to take it all in. Bucky’s arm draped over a slim waist, palm resting flat against the plains of a bony chest, holding Steve close despite him having obviously inched away at some point during the night. Though he clearly hadn’t taken a hint, to the point that Bucky’s all but crowded him off of it, willing to roll the both of them out onto the floor for the sake of proximity. And it’s worth it, almost, for the way Steve’s blond hair, somehow smelling both like fresh rain and sunshine, feels resting against his cheeks. Steve’s backside, all too welcoming, pressing against the hardness burning between Bucky’s thighs. 

Bucky stills to the point that his blood may freeze in his veins, his ability to think straight getting lost somewhere in the crossfire of an internal war, as his hips, he swears on their own, rock forward a centimeter towards the glorious pressure. 

And Steve, Steve just barely begins to groan awake at the movement, his back arching as he stretches himself round to consciousness, shoulder slipping under Buck’s chin in the process. There’s a fraction of an instant when everything misfires at once, when Bucky almost does something real goddamn stupid, like trying to bend his neck over the swoop of Steve’s shoulder to kiss his collarbone, and he might have — if his brain wasn’t already so hysterical, trying to convince his lungs that self-suffocation isn’t a viable solution to anything. Unaware of the layered disarray occuring behind him, Steve continues to slide against him as the guy shifts onto his back, immediately cementing in his own awkward position when a hiccup of protest sounds from the depths of Bucky’s throat, summoned against his will at the too welcome feeling of friction. 

There’s a shared moment of mutual horror, all at once locating the framework of the past 30 seconds as they find the gates past drowsy, regaining full citizenship in the land of the living. When both of them truly know what it means to be still, as comprehension ripens wide and bright to an unavoidable state. 

And Bucky, with no sense of grace or subtly, is already out of bed and onto his feet. He moves quickly, grabbing yesterday’s clothes from their various occupancies around the room, having been shed and tossed last night with the same lack of tact he fights them on with now. Hopping from foot to foot as he shoves them into untied shoes and mumbles words like _late_ and _training_ and _overslept_ that surely mean something, even if only out of this context. 

When he dares to look back towards the corner he’s left Steve in, it’s almost by accident, caught in the sweep his gaze is making towards the door en route to his exit. Steve is still sitting there, eyes wide in a way that cuts into Bucky, mouth parted around the beginning of a word he’d most definitely bet their rent money on that he’d rather not hear. 

It’s one step and another on legs that feel almost mechanical, muscles stiff with taut tension. Hiding the way his fingers shake by running them through his hair as he scurries away, feeling more and more like a mouse that’d just met a cat. 

“...Bucky…?” 

Steve’s voice is small, wrapped up tightly in a ball of tentativeness. The upwards curl of tone flickers with hurt, enough that Bucky almost halts in his tracks, but the innocence of it can’t be trusted. Not for long, anyways. Steve will wake up and connect the dots. Drawing a line that will lead Steve to answers about his friend that even Bucky won’t allow himself to unearth. 

So Bucky grabs the door handle instead, yanking it open before tossing a, “Got to go,” behind him like the afterthought that it is.

* * *

_**1934, Spring** _

It hadn’t been long before his first thought of Steve at an inappropriate time had been gifted company. Hell, it hadn’t even been a full day until it happened again. Then over and over until it was impossible to bluff that it was all just a miscalculation of his imagination, completely lacking in intent. Telling himself instead that this must be some kind of awful side effect, an unwanted byproduct of the taboo nature of the whole damn thing. The two of them talked about everything else, it wasn’t so unreasonable for a part of him to speculate about their one lasting topic of secrecy. By hell, Bucky had probably spent more of his life covered in Steve’s bodily fluids than he had of his own, what with the punk perpetually bleeding out post-scuffle when he wasn’t sick with fever-sweats. They were close in a weird kind of way. It was fine, surely, for unknowns to rub raw. 

Only... His _I wonders…_ sometimes traveled less down the road of hypotheticals or broadly cast questions. Feeling more and more like the desperate need for specifics, like the tendrils of vivid imaginings. Even if, of course, they couldn't be. 

The list only got longer, the crimes on it only got worse. 

Like how Steve had started demanding that he come along for Bucky’s morning runs, even after the first day had nearly killed the guy. How Bucky will count off the cracks in the sidewalk as they sweep under his feet, failed attempts at drowning out the sound of Steve’s labored panting beside him. Staring at the neighbor’s laundry where it hangs from their balconies once they’ve made their full loop, focusing his eyes anywhere but the glistening hollow of Steve’s throat where the sweat likes to congregate. How he’ll wonder sometimes what sound Steve would make if Bucky were to give in, drag his thumb through that pool before slipping the digit into his mouth and getting a taste. 

Or the time Steve’s soft serve got away from him one day as they sat by the water, his tongue spending the better part of an hour licking the wayward cream off of his own forearms, leaving Bucky with the impossible task of figuring out which variable in this equation he wanted to be the most. Steve’d finally given up, slipping off his shirt to use as a towel, insisting that they didn’t have to head back despite the warning glance Bucky’d flicked towards the pale expanse of his now exposed chest. How he’d tried to not enjoy the way Steve’s reddened skin felt under his palms that night, the planes of his back scorching and pliable, as Bucky soothed lotion into the inevitable sunburn. 

Each brush of their biceps as they walk side by side, the sight of first light on Steve’s face whenever he sleeps over, the easy smiles and the hard won laughs, all weaving together to form an intricate pattern of denial. 

Until James Buchanan wasn’t even sure what he didn’t know anymore. Until… 

Dolores, season opening of Coney Island. 

Bucky had invited her to walk with them without giving it much thought, already having decided that he had no real use for her dark brown hair and bright red lips. It wasn’t personal, per se, and definitely nothing that could be pinned on her — just a general feeling that their date as a whole wasn’t anything Bucky hadn’t been through before. But Steve, on the other hand, he’d seemed interested enough when they’d all met at the diner the week before. Though Steve, to be fair, just wanted to finally get kissed. 

And Bucky, well, Bucky just mostly needed him to stop talking about it before he either hired a hooker to take care of the deed or did what he actually wanted to do and ruin everything… the current front runner on his ever present list of things he swore that he didn’t know. 

She was nicer than most of the girls he asked out, though the pity in her eyes each time they landed on Steve grated on Bucky in a way that felt like it was pinching at him, making him feel too tight in all the wrong places. _You can’t pity and revere the same thing,_ he wanted to lecture her, knowing they’d never agree on which his friend deserved more. Her, too sweet to be unkind, and him, not yet a big enough hypocrite to argue omission as a form of dishonesty, they came to some kind of silent accord when Bucky started trailing behind them. 

He watched as Dolores pulled more towards Steve the more obvious it became that whatever interest Bucky had feigned to get her there had finally drained. He watched, trying to not count the inches of closing distance they found as they walked away, Steve making her laugh in a way that Bucky could tell was sincere, even from his 30ft orbit. And then she did it. Leaned right down from her high heeled perch, as she took Steve’s face between her hands, as her mouth found his in a peck that was far more simply the touching of smiles than an actual kiss. 

It felt like the entire boardwalk had given out, Bucky’s stomach plummeting in a way the rides never managed to make it, suddenly understanding exactly why the Cyclone always made Steve hurl. He watched as Dolores giggled, as the backs of Steve’s ears turned red, as the two of them wandered in their own shared bubble for a bit before she returned to her gaggle of girls and Steve, Steve seemed to stumble his way back to Bucky’s side without even looking for him, like following the chirp of a homing beacon. 

Bucky wasn’t sure what the past tense of, _‘Go get ‘em tiger,’_ was and so he tried to summon his most cocky smile as the kid insisted his way onto the bench that Bucky was determined to sit in the middle of. Bucky wasn’t sure of just about anything. 

“Did you see?” Steve finally asked, staring straight forward and refusing to look at him, the corners of his mouth pulling down as his throat worked a swallow. 

“Sure did, Casanova,” and he swore, if he hadn’t felt his mouth moving then Bucky wouldn’t have recognized his own freaking voice. 

Steve didn’t seem to notice the pitch being too high, the fragile thin line of forced smugness, or the wavering undertone. His jaw tensed before slacking again, his tongue wetting his lips before finding the slimmest corner of his eye that existed and granting it to Bucky; the offering having been diced even further as his blond hair, in desperate need of a cut he couldn't afford, fell into his sightline. Steve’s skin looked warm in all the lights from the rides in a way that he never actually was, managing to teter on the brink of shiver deep into August. His bottom lip was fuller than normal from all his worrying it, pupils blown open from the angle of his face, looking back at Buck and away from the blaze of the park. 

Bucky realized, for absolutely no reason, that he could barely make out the sickly yellow bruise that he knew resided high on Steve’s cheek, nearly completely swallowed by his profile’s casted shadow. It’d been a gift from a man who wouldn’t stop harassing a homeless guy round the corner from Steve’s place last week, one more lost battle in a war of morals his friend would never surrender. 

Steve looked nervous in a way that the guy had long before trained himself never to. 

“It look okay?” Steve had finally asked. 

Bucky, for his part, just felt ready to scream as he plastered on a grin that they could probably see across the bay in Jersey. “No one likes a compliment whore, punk.” 

“God, you’re a jerk,” Steve replied, lighter, in a laugh. 

When Steve crashed their shoulders together, Bucky’s spine curved to absorb the energy, and instead of bouncing off, they both just sat there pressed together on the edge of the crowd, each of their smiles working their way back to genuine. 

The days went on. The list got longer. 

* * *

**1941 December 7th 5:21AM**

Bucky’s feet have already hit pavement when he realizes the state of himself; shirt buttoned lopsidedly and shoes untied, gym bag full of clothes that haven’t been washed, all culminating in a desperate desire to piss that he was too busy running away to quell. He can’t imagine what he must look like. If it’s even a fraction as bad as he feels than his only immediate goal should be avoiding crossing paths with a mirror. 

He catches sight of the generous shadow his hair is casting and immediately raises his hand in an attempt to flatten it back down to his skull. Only, at first touch, he can still feel the tingle of blood loss from where his bicep had been used as a pillow. Steve’s breath on the inside of his elbow, Steve’s hair touching his mouth, Steve’s spine melding to the curve of his ribs. 

Steve’s _ass_ against Bucky’s _cock._

A crack in the sidewalk nearly gets the better of him, too busy righting himself against the pull of gravity, swearing that he heard a — 

“Bucky! Stop! Come on!” 

He thinks about taking off in a sprint but the vision of Steve’s face, ripe with conviction, locks him into place. A determined Steve Rogers will always choose perseverance over common sense and the guy’s already panting with their apartment still in view. Bucky doesn’t want to be responsible for the guy dropping dead. He’s done enough. 

“Jesus, Buck. You gone deaf or something?” 

He’s gone a lot of things that Steve doesn’t know about. But he doesn’t think that’s one of them. 

“I gotta get to the gym,” he answers instead. “Match tomorrow.” It’s a lie, and a bad one. First off, Steve knows his schedule better than Bucky could ever hope to, writes it out and hangs it up on their fridge like a mother marks their kid’s school play. And secondly, Buck always takes the day before a big one to rest his muscles, no use losing the edge by going into the ring sore, and god knows Steve knows that too. 

Steve who is just staring at him. It’d be better if he yelled, called him a name, spit on him. Buck would let him get all the hits in he wanted. Anything but the look he’s getting now, desperate and worried, like one may wear when observing half dead roadkill. 

“I just wanted to say I was sorry,” and it’s the unsureness in Steve’s voice that actually cuts him. The kid may be wrong half the time but he’s always fucking convinced about it. “I don’t really know what happened back there.” 

_But you will,_ Bucky thinks, loud enough that half of Brooklyn must hear it. _You’ll spend most of the morning thinking about it until, just to be thorough, you run a hypothetical where I’m not automatically granted the benefit of the doubt. And then, you will._

Offering out loud, “Nothing, I just overslept.” 

Blue eyes drag away from their spot on his face to the street that’s nearly empty at the current pre-rush hour, before landing back on Bucky with a physical impact. It feels like the moment a jab lands, like the stereotypical clearing of dust, like the second before an explosion. Steve’s expression keeps morphing, eyes wide and jaw tensing, his chest still heaving slightly. It figures. Bucky spends his whole damn life trying to teach the brat how to brew a healthy dose of fear and the thing Steve’s finally afraid of is him. 

Is queers. 

He wants to say that he didn’t mean it. That they’ll buy a new second bed and a space heater. That he’ll get a girlfriend and actually try with her, stop pulling Steve’s shirt out of the hamper to smell while he’s pretending to shower. But it won’t change anything, not really, and Steve’s not dumb enough to be fooled. It’s one of the things Bucky loves about him. 

It’s one of the things Bucky doesn’t know that he — It isn't — he doesn't even know what he's not supposed to know. He _doesn’t_ know how the lines got so blurred. 

One step backwards and another, thumb jerking behind him in the direction he fully plans on running away in. Though he doesn’t get far, Steve grabbing him by the front of his shirt before Bucky can so much as turn away. There’s a familiar look on Steve’s face, the one that says plainer than words exactly what kind of son of a bitch he thinks Bucky’s being, but argument is left in the realm of expression. Both of them remaining an odd for them silent as they watch Steve’s long fingers move over the fabric he’s finally stopped clutching, pulling the buttons back open before working them closed again, actually in the proper order. 

“There,” Steve says, tugging the left side of his collar out and folding it down, squeezing his shoulder the way Bucky always does to him when something’s really wrong. 

But this isn’t one of their Us Against Them’s. This isn’t something that just caring can fix. This doesn’t fit into their brand of writing your own happy ending. 

Bucky pulls away, too sharply to be casual, and spins on his heels without meeting Steve’s eyes. He walks away, pretending not to ask a brand new question. 

_Who gets to decide where the end of the line is?_

* * *

_ **1936, Fall** _

Bucky’s offer had been sincere, but that hadn’t stopped his heart from introducing itself to the floor when Steve so easily accepted it. Getting him to move into Bucky’s studio apartment in the wake of Sarah’s death had been one of their less brutal battles, won at the simple cost of an emotional confession, and the small smile on Steve’s slowly unclenching face had been worth every turn of Bucky’s stomach. Steve really could get by on his own. As far as Bucky was concerned the guy could do just about anything other than dance, but that didn’t mean that keeping him a bit closer wouldn’t help Buck sleep a bit sounder. Knowing that Steve wasn’t working himself to death to make rent, that his slight frame was packing away at least one decent meal each day, meant that the worst of Bucky’s dreamless nights would at least be shared by two. 

On the flip side, their already codependent friendship would now only be smothered in a coating of inescapability. There would be no going home to snore it off after a slow walk in the park capped a shirtless afternoon at the McCarren pool. No convenient excuse of, _‘long day at work, maybe let’s call it a night, pal,’_ when the awareness of how closely their fingers rested on the worn out couch cushion between them began dulling out the sounds of the Dodgers losing. There would be no jerking off, loudly to get out the tension, after an evening spent at the movies. 

Bucky still hadn’t given up insisting that they sit in the back of the theater, under the ruse that his _‘eyes are no good up close,’_ but Steve knew better. Though Rogers would have claimed that his preference of seat was only so that he could run his mouth the whole time with less of a chance of getting creamed with a bucket of popcorn from another irritated patron. Bucky had let him think it, unable to offer his only defense, the reality that he favored the section because the seats back there survived the fire the previous fall. They were a little bit smaller than the newer ones, making it easier to crowd Steve’s armrest, their shoulders pressing together through layers of fabrics somehow a more sensational feeling than the one time Betty had allowed his hand under her shirt for a whole ten minutes. 

Five months had disappeared since Steve moved in with the blink of an eye, confirming Bucky’s belief that the easiest thing to ignore is the one that lives directly under your nose. You can learn to forget the pain altogether, eventually, when the same joint never stops hurting. So it was terrible, really, in almost every way except in the ones where he’d never been happier. 

It was an early fall day, nice enough that the windows had still been left open overnight, when Bucky opened his eyes to find Steve perched on their one level chair, having pulled it to only a foot away from their solitary bed. The other one had succumbed to mold after a bout of leaky roof in June and the two of them had, at first, swapped off for the couch. Though with their almost immediate complaining about sore backs and necks, Buck had generously given it a month, at best, before they gave into sharing like they did as kids. Steve had crawled in with him after only two weeks. 

Waking up to being stared at though, that had been new. 

“Wha— ?” 

“Don’t move,” was how he’d been cut off, Steve’s eyes not leaving the paper pad in his lap. “You look…” granting Bucky the quickest peek of his gaze, one that started at the tent of his toes under the sheet and slid up to the hem of the blanket across his chest, before finally finding his face. “Just give me a minute,” and it wasn’t a request. 

Knowing the quicker way with Steve was always the one of least resistance, Bucky remained where he was. He earned one glare when he stretched out, arm sinking into a heat impression to the left of him, proof the kid had at least pretended to sleep. It was close to his back, definitely past the median line that they silently drew, as if Steve had curled into him in the middle of the night. He didn’t mind the idea. Maybe minded how much he hadn’t. Though he had been too busy earning a second scowl, complete with an eye roll, when Steve’s gaze met his a few moments later to worry about it too much. 

“You just gonna stare at me while I work?” Steve asked in a huff. 

He took in the hair falling into Steve’s eyes, the thin cheeks that never really filled out, the pencil smudges that somehow had managed their way onto his face, and his lack of a shirt — too warm with the both of them crowded together and any small ease of laundry a welcome one. Bucky had been trying not to count the days until winter when they’d become a necessity again. He wasn’t memorizing the planes of Steve’s chest, the feel of his back where Bucky’s fingertips reached out to rest against sometimes at night, or wondering why the guy continued to allow it. 

“Your underlying complaint seems a little hypocritical,” Bucky shot back, only mostly sure it was something worth saying. “Given our current circumstances.” 

Only a grunt sounded in response, a half smile tweaking to life with the twitch of his pencil, the sound of lead on paper mixing in with the noises from the world outside and the street below as the city woke up around them. 

Bucky’s eyes had only just reshut when they were startled back open. His abs, having taken too good of a beating in the ring yesterday, groaned in protest as he bolted upright, startled by the notebook landing on his face, lobbed there by Steve who looked entirely too satisfied even from behind, as he walked away. 

It was clearly him, at least a version of him that’d been refocused through the lens of ideals. He looked peaceful and content and, if Bucky was absolutely forced to pick a word, welcoming. He looked like someone worth drawing. His fingers felt an odd kind of itch sweep through them as they gripped the edges of the page, wanting desperately to swipe over the lines that made up his mouth. There were faint traces of eraser marks there, a few lingering smudges, as if it had been redone a few times. As if it had been important that it was done right. 

He stared at it long enough that when he finally looked up Steve was already halfway through making their normal breakfast: Two weak cups of joe and a stack of mostly burnt toast. 

“I think you spliced me with Cary Grant,” Bucky finally managed to say, eating the question he actually wanted to ask, and tossing the notebook on the mattress behind him if only to get the thought away from himself. 

“Everyone’s a critic,” was the only reply, Steve entirely more concerned with the spreading of butter than Bucky’s unasked for opinion. 

An hour later, food eaten and clothing changed, all of his bruises having been roughly poked with a softer jab about, _Letting the other guy take a few next time,_ he’d been too caught up in making a mental list of the day to realize that his question from earlier had broken free from its prison. Bucky’s, “You really think I look like that?” was out of his mouth, chin jutting towards the spiral rings still caught in the nest of their blankets. 

“There hasn’t been a girl in smelling distance of you for the last five years that hasn’t tried to make you her leading man and you’re coming to _me_ for flattery?” 

_It’s different,_ he had wanted to say, all knowing that he shouldn’t. Because then he’d have to explain why, which would mean that he’d have to know how to. Why it mattered what Steve thought of his looks when Buck could have retired yesterday if he made a nickel for every interested broad that he met when Steve, who shared but one kiss in his life, never looked to him for assurances. Why none of his backseat antics would mean very much if Steve’s most honest opinion was that he didn’t really get what the fuss was about. 

So he shrugged, instead. 

Steve’s eyes held his own for way too long, a shift occurring as deep as skeletal level. There had been an honesty there, complete with exhaustion, leaving Buck to wonder if he had slept at all or only laid there, still, counting off his bedmate’s snoring. Though Steve looked away just as quickly, gaze falling over to the tangle of their sleep pants where they’d been thrown, crumpled by the foot of the mattress. Finally conceding, “You always look good, Buck,” in a tone that was so overly sincere it’d been dripping with it. 

Buck spent the morning distracted, his trainer rightly beating the shit out of him until they broke for lunch, and he found his focus in the unwavering fact that nothing had changed. He’d been grateful for the soreness in his ribs every time that he inhaled, needing the excuse for the burn in his chest, just missing the center of the physical sensation, everytime his mind wandered. 

He told himself that vanity’s a sin. He told himself that, if he was lucky, it was the only one he had committed that morning. 

* * *

_**1941 December 7th 2:45PM** _

He’s taking his frustrations out on a wellmeaning bag when he suddenly realizes the quietness in the room around him. The normal comings and goings, the grunts and groans, the yelling of orders, all stopped. It takes him a moment of listening before he finds the sounds of cars outside, a faint noise he shouldn’t even be able to hear over the chaos of a gym, but it’s proof enough that the world is carrying on. He just needs to find it. 

The world, it turns out, isn’t far away at all, the better part of the staff and patrons crowded around a radio in the pathetic excuse they call a cafe. His eyes jump from face to face, the array of somber to shock to rage all present and accounted for as he squeezes in next to Jim, his trainer. 

“Sorry,” and Buck’s never heard the man actually speak before now. It’s always a gripe or a holler, a snarky comment. But Jim sounds real and small and like an actual human being which makes it all worse when he says, “I’m sorry, I should have grabbed you.” 

He learns that Japan has decimated a Hawaiian Naval base. He learns that they think that thousands are dead. He learns that America has just entered the war. 

And he, of course, first thinks of Steve. Like he always does. 

Bucky’s outside, looking around at an otherwise normal day, when he realizes that home isn’t the answer to this. Home isn’t going to solve anything. He grabs a cop standing nearby instead, nearly having to slap the man out of the stupor he’s in — staring numbly at a television in a store window that’s playing the same panicked footage on loop. The guy’s face never really comes back to life, blinking slowly as he listens just well enough for the question to sink in. Eyes glazed over, he’s still able to point Buck in the direction of an enlistment center. Offers to drive him and everything, but Bucky figures that walking to meet your maker works just as well. 

It’ll be a few weeks until they’re sent off for training, a few months after that until he’s tossed over the pond. They may even send him home for a bit in the in between. He can take on as many matches as his body can win, fold back in the less legally sourced ones, and he could have a decent stack of money to leave for Steve if he empties his pretty barren savings account. Enough to get him by if Bucky can figure out how to send his checks home in a way that Steve can cash ‘em. They’ve both lived on less. 

Steve’s going to be a new level of furious. Steve’s going to redefine throwing a tizzy. But it was never going to be like they planned. Him coming down to the Y with Buck, spending long afternoons muscle training, both knowing that the war was never going to remain a solely international affair. They had talked about enlisting together, when the time finally came, doing their best to stay on as a team. They had joked, the kind that’s brimming with underlying fear, that Hitler would never see Brooklyn coming. And as much as Bucky had always known it was horseshit, he’d always been sincere when he added, “You, Rogers, you’ll live to tell our tale.” 

The training may have been a ruse, but Steve’s nose got broken less with the newfound blocking. He looked a little more on the beam while he still lost each fight. And Bucky had enjoyed the activity. Steve sweaty enough to make like a half drowned rat and still the best looking thing in the room, asthma attacks and all. 

Which is exactly why Buck needs to go. They’ll throw him in a trench somewhere, maybe he’ll actually get to do some good for once before getting blown the fuck up. Take the place of some other guy in one of the mass graves, send that fella home to be with his family when this is all over. Instead of just sticking around, uselessly just getting by. Pretending, badly, to be normal. Counting the years until people start pushing the subject of him settling down, hanging up the playboy charade, not understanding that there’s nothing worthwhile underneath it. 

Standing around as some dame with some sense finally stumbles along, capable of seeing what the hell’s right in front of her, and Buck’s forced to watch Steve Rogers fall in love. 

Buck walks the eight blocks, silently reading off his crimes for the record, wondering if doing the right thing even counts if it’s for the wrong reasons. Steve would tell him there were easier options he wasn’t even considering and he should give himself some credit. Steve would tell him it wasn’t as simple as he was making it sound and shouldn’t be so hard on himself. Steve would have, at some point, rolled his eyes and called him a good man. 

Buck walks the eight blocks, knowing he’s not going to ask anyone anything.

* * *

_ **1939, Winter** _

It had been snowing for days, though it felt like a month, spectacularly missing the target of a white Christmas dreamland. It was the kind of sludge-slush that turns brown the moment it touches down, before getting into your clothes, seeping into your skin, until your bones feel heavy with the weight of it. The women in town had been murmuring that the kids were finally getting their way, the men making comments about the rats being flushed out of their sewer dens, like it had all been a part of some cosmic plan. Bucky, for his part, just wanted to take a step where his shoes didn’t squeak for a change. 

When Steve came home one Saturday from his newest gig as a bag boy, an hour late and soaking wet and doing his best not to look thoroughly frozen under his vaguely dry jacket, Bucky tried not to immediately be a jerk about it. 

Which only ended up sounding something like, “What, Rogers? You telling me all the other guys are afraid of a little snow?” 

Steve’s face went back and forth for a moment, teetering between annoyed and nonchalant, taking the sideroad of pride, before collapsing into an honest heap of expression that just read as tired. 

“It’s not worth fighting with them about it, Buck. I can’t lose another job, they didn’t want to give me this one in the first place. I start acting like I can’t handle it this early…” trailing off as his arm fought to bend at a dangerous angle in his attempt to escape the confines of his sopping undershirt. 

As entertaining as the show had been, Bucky gave in, moving across the apartment to wrangle Steve out of the cotton mantrap before the brat actually dislocated something. Sympathetic or not, Buck hoped his opinion of the subject read clear on his face as he wrung out the fabric, contributing to the worthy puddle that had already leaked out of Steve’s shoes onto their living room floor. 

“They won’t even let you wear your jacket when you’re out there chasing carts?” Steve’s only answer was a mumbled, _‘Uniform,’_ as he worked himself out of his pants with considerably less effort. “Could have at least let you dry out from time to time. Save me the trouble of burning down the apartment when I try to make you some soup.” 

Steve continued insisting that he was fine, even as he slumped into the corner they had started calling a bed after the frame of their actual one finally collapsed, the clock barely reading 7pm. His normal thunderous snores had not taken long to follow. Bucky had called it a night soon after, if only because he knew that Steve would curl into the warmth of his body like a life saver in the open sea, needing it in a way he’d never actually ask for. 

Bucky knew there had to be a better way. He wondered if Steve would be this way, kill himself like this, if there were any assurances that Bucky was allowed to grant him. If he knew exactly where Bucky’s allegiances lay, come hell or high water, Hitler or dame. It could be so much simpler than all of this. 

Except that it couldn’t be. 

Steve was as sick as a dog come the morning. His manager seemed too happy to hear it.

* * *

_ **1941, December 7th, 5:03PM** _

Bucky feels like shit walking out of the recruitment office, signed paperwork tucked under his arm. He doesn’t think that anyone actually even looked at him before they stamped his paper, marking him free to die. He feels bad in a lot of different ways. That he isn’t doing this for any of the proper reasons. That the sudden wave of fear he felt at the door almost stopped him from going in altogether. That he still might regret this, come morning, regardless of it being the right thing to do. 

That he barely had to lift a finger to get something he’s still not sure he even wants, when Steve would do anything for a 1-A. 

He tells himself that individual people make a difference all the time. He could take down the right plane, he could choke out the right guy, storm the right bunker and this could all be over, no war left for Steve to fight. He could go over there, find a grenade to lay on, and send someone else home. 

He could come back, maybe, a different person. One that Steve could forgive. 

When he finally gets home, the place is empty. He tosses his acceptance letter onto the counter, pacing the one room before deciding that the silence of the apartment may kill him before a Nazi even gets a chance at it. His skin crawls no less adamentally down at the bar, the new world tone feeling more like a funeral procession by the hour and he can’t seem to stop looking over his shoulder, searching for the hearse. 

* * *

_** 1940, Summer ** _

The literal world may be collapsing around them but James Barnes figured his luck hadn’t quite run out yet. Boxing wasn’t exactly turning him into a Rockefeller but it was keeping a roof over their heads and enough food on the table that Steve had only gained weight four months in a row for the first time in their post-pubescent lives. Steve, who still managed to be sick more often than not, had spent most of the summer begging places for a new job. Bucky had used up all his restraint forcing himself not to follow along behind him, doing something dumb like paying off the owners to turn him down, just finally getting used to seeing some color on the small guy’s cheeks. It was worth a few extra matches a month, seeing his friend not being half dead for a living. 

Steve continued to argue that he should be pulling his fair weight. And Bucky stuck to the rebuttal that perhaps the other party involved should get a say in deciding how much that is. 

His current girlfriend, Anne, who was one of the prettiest he’d ever landed and by far the kindest, kept on telling him that Steve wasn’t his to worry about. A part of him wasn’t lacking in gratitude for the opinion, pleased as anything that she saw his best friend as a functioning adult in a way that so many refused to. Though he never found time to say it, a whole other part of his brain too busy biting back the rebuttal that Steve could be two things at once; that Steve was indeed a man and no less Bucky’s concern for the fact of it. An argument that surely wouldn’t tell her anything good about the bloke that was claiming to be in love with her. That Steve was his. End of. 

He was happy, he thought, as much as he could be, until at once he landed himself in a standoff with the both of them and realized he had nowhere to escape. 

Steve was mad because they both knew that with Germany in France, and rounding towards Britain, it’d only be a matter of time before the U.S. had to choose a side of the fence, no matter what FDR told the press. Bucky wasn’t exactly afraid of enlisting, figuring there’d be far better than the likes of him dying out there, and the only thing worse than not coming back would be not going at all. He’d sign up, no question, as soon as the States entered the war and the Army got desperate enough to start seeing the likes of Steve as a proper option. The kid had always redefined the notion of stubborn and he wasn’t going to be told no, not forever anyways. Bucky’s tongue had gone near permanently numb from trying to talk him back from the brink. 

If he leaned on patience, and luck decided to be generous, he hoped they may at least get through training together. God could finally give them a break and ship ‘em across the Atlantic with the same troop number stamped into their dog tags. Bucky had no real delusions about Steve’s odds should he reach the other side of the Atlantic, his only real goal was that they come home together — though whether they come off the plane walking or in bags, he was never stupid enough to be picky. 

He refused to think about that. Didn’t even want to know what it meant that every other girlfriend he had has been dropped at the first sign of pressing him on the time spent with Steve, that it’d been almost a year with Anne and her acceptance of them had begun to irritate him when he should be relieved. How it felt, oddly, like he was running out of time and excuses even though he could never pin down for what. And he didn’t, ever, wonder why the body he imagined under his when he closed his eyes and palmed himself was never quite soft or full enough to be right, how the one syllable moans that he comes on never quite sound like _Anne._

Anne, who was growing simply tired of watching her friends get married. And Bucky, well, he wished he could blame her. Wished that someone would give him a reason to end it or finish it or tie it up with a nice pretty bow. That Steve — 

Which is how he ended up bringing it up in the 6th, a perfectly good way to ruin a Dodgers game, a luxury for them, given as a birthday present from him to Steve, and accepted with the earnest kind of gratitude that always managed to shake his vocal chords. It had been a whole 15 minutes before the brat had started protesting the cost, recanting the current state of their finances as if Bucky may have forgotten what poor was, though Steve’s hand holding the tickets had jumped back and out of Buck’s reach when he finally snapped, “Fine, I’ll find someone to go with that’s less vexed by the idea,” the whole thing turning into a tousle on the floor. 

Only sitting in the stands, Steve had barely even blinked when Bucky brought up his wedding woes with all the casualness of ordering a hotdog; “Anne’s been, well, _hinting_ may be to soft a word, about getting married.” 

Steve hadn’t reacted, didn’t so much as look away from the slow action on the field, nodding like Bucky had just told him the sky was blue. Which just made him mad. He decided, sitting in the bleachers of Ebbets, in front of God and the unasking eyes of 20,000 fans, to recklessly press. “Things would have to change. A lot. I’d have to move out, start a life, pretend to act like a normal person,” he said. _Not some guy caught in a perpetual slumber party,_ he did not. 

But Steve just kept shoving crackerjacks into his mouth by the fistful, looking over to Bucky with a raised eyebrow when it became clear that he was waiting for a response. And when he finally found one, Steve had the gall to answer levelly, “Yeah? It sounds like it could be really good for you, Buck. This was never meant to last forever.” 

Which is how anger quickly boiled into panic. 

They went back and forth in a two sided war of passive aggression meeting unrelenting sincerity, Bucky only serving to upset himself as he talked about having kids and moving to the suburbs and weekends full of softball games and mowing lawns, the, _instead of this,_ left silently spoken between the lines of everything else. And Steve had just kept on nodding, looking over at him like he had three heads, when he bothered looking at him at all, until Bucky finally snapped. 

A, “Fuck me for thinking you’d care,” ripped out of him, flailingly missing the line of funny like a rookie batter facing down his first major league knuckleball. 

Steve’s face finally moved at that. Or more, transformed. And suddenly Bucky felt selfish and dumb and so fucking annoyed with himself, realizing he’d fallen for the infamous Steve Roger’s mask. Something that looked like grief was on Steve’s face in the very next moment, mixed with a raw kind of confusion, desperate like the dogs in the alley behind their apartment — the ones who already knew that they’d had their last meal and no longer begged you for scraps. 

Bucky was still trying to pan that out into something that might’ve made sense when Steve asked, innocently, “Well, you love her, don’t you?” 

He realized, all at once, that that should matter. That he should. And, in another sweeping revelation, that he didn’t. That it never really occurred to him to think about it, as stupid as that sounded. The way he didn't think about whether it’ll snow in July or if cows can fly or if Steve can sing... the answer is always going to be no, even if it was too obvious to see it. He wasn’t built to be a romantic, not like Stevie, but a piece of him looked at the question of Anne and answered with only, _‘You can't be in love in layers, Barnes,’_ and he added that, promptly, to the list of things not to think about. 

It was suddenly his turn not to answer. The 12-1 game before them all at once becoming the most interesting thing he had ever borne witness to in his life, wanting desperately to take his turn at shoveling snacks into his mouth if only for the excuse to stay quiet. But his hands were shaking badly enough that he knew Steve couldn’t not notice, even if Bucky tried to hide it by stealing the box of popcorn from the other guy’s lap. 

The rest of the crowd had slowly begun to thin out, what with the unfolding massacre on the field. The bleachers were empty around them for at least 3 rows on either side but neither of them made a move to edge up, figuring that watching their team get slaughtered wouldn’t look any cuter up close. They’d never really wanted anyone else’s company, anyways. 

The top of the 9th came and went before Steve finally said, with all the finesse of an elephant stampede, “If you love her, you should marry her, Buck, instead of worrying about me. You know I’ve always gotten by. Despite what you think — I’m not totally incapable.” It was a joke, with a smile, eyes wide and happy and Bucky fucking hated it as Steve bumped their shoulders together like everything was fine. Not liking it anymore when the corners of his mouth slipped, just a bit, as Steve’s bottom lip got dragged between his teeth for just a moment. He looked away, out to where the Dodgers were continuing in the manner of their 8th inning performance, popping out cleanly to center, seemingly as eager as Bucky to get the hell out of here. 

There was only one out left when Steve finally added, voice losing at least half of its softness, “But if you’re only thinking about doing it just cause she wants to, if you’re only doing it because everyone thinks that you should... then you shouldn’t. Not if you don’t love her.” He stole back the now empty popcorn box, shooting Bucky a look before shoving it into his pocket despite the sea of trash in the stands. Steve Rogers never one to make someone’s day harder, unless it absolutely has to be. His eyes finally refound Bucky’s, squinting against the low setting sun, “You shouldn’t be afraid to wait, you know. Find someone you’re sure of. Marry them.” 

The Dodgers lost 14-2 and Steve rolled his eyes when Bucky asked if he’d be okay getting home by himself, that he had something to do. 

Anne slapped him, hard, when he told her it was over. And he felt bad, really, for how much better he felt, despite the sting in his cheek. She deserved better than whatever the collection of answers he refused to find must make him, anyways. 

He stopped to get a pie from the corner bakery on the way home, despite the already too indulgent day, to the groan of his already light wallet. Steve hadn’t asked right away and he didn’t tell him, though the brat somehow knew, like he always did. 

They were under the covers, buried in their roost on the floor, neither having mentioned buying a new set of beds since the second frame had been tossed out the window years go. Bucky figured it was just as well being on the floor, conserving body heat for the winter that would be back in no time. His head was on his pillow before Steve’s patience ran out, his exhaustion backfiring with a, “You’ll find the right person, I know you will,” that may have soothed Bucky’s turmoil if only the storm hadn’t entirely centered around where his traitorous heart seemed to have already laid claim. Finding the right person, that had never been the issue. Or, maybe, it was the issue entirely in a whole different way. 

But he couldn’t look at that without looking at the rest of it and Lord knew that then, 1am in a shared nest on the ground, his face 10 inches away from what he was sure was at least half of the answers, was not the time to empty the closets. 

So he said instead, “Who says I’m looking?” A half-truth dwelling in the purgatory between honesty and a lie. 

Steve snorted and only rolled over, both of them pretending they didn’t notice the way Bucky’s fingers reached out, pressed into the divot of his lower back, like they did every night.

* * *

_ **1941, December 7th, 9:21PM** _

When he comes home, Steve is standing so close to the door that the thing almost hits him on the swing open. And he’s holding Bucky’s acceptance letter like he’s just figured out exactly how it can be used as a weapon. 

Bucky can’t even get his mouth open before Steve’s barking, “What is this?” 

It’s not the time. It may actually be the opposite of the time. But Buck is dancing on about five different live nerve endings at once, not sure which is pumping the deadliest juice, and so his brain is only marginally aware that he’s even saying, “News Headline: Local kid gets into college without being able to read,” while it’s actively coming out of his mouth. 

Steve’s face crumples before being picked off the floor and plastered back on, righteous indignation more powerful than ever. 

“You said you were going to wait for me,” Steve presses, holding onto eye contact no matter how badly Buck tries to duck it. 

“And you told me not to. Now we both get to be miserable.” 

A moment passes in silence before there’s a decision to be made. He could turn right around and walk back out. Steve’s a decent sprinter for a guy with jokes for legs and no muscle on his bones, no matter how much time he spends at the gym with Bucky. But if he got a jump start, the guy wouldn’t stand a chance at catching him. He looks at Steve’s face, hurt and afraid and no small amount of pissed, and Bucky knows that storming out when the shit hits the proverbial fan isn’t like them. He swears that he doesn't know much, but he knows now isn’t the time to start that trend. 

“I would have left,” Steve says, his tone clear in a way that Bucky can’t imagine is easy right now. “If that’s what you wanted.” 

And a wheel must really need to get greased up there because all his brain can manage is a snort in response, the, “You’re not the one with the problem here,” delayed, at best. 

For some reason, that only seems to piss Steve off more. 

“It’s not my fault that you have a problem, asshole. I know where to draw the line.” His voice drops, an edge of something that sounds like desperation working into his tone when he tacks on, “I was half asleep, Buck.” 

A tingling of something is happening in a far corner of Bucky’s mind that he can’t quite grasp onto and look at. Something that definitely thinks he ought to take a step back and find a new angle to study this from. But he can’t hear any of it over the steam whistle in his head signaling that time is up. 

“I wasn’t exactly up and dancing either,” Bucky snaps, meaner than he meant to, and his eyes press closed with the guilt of it. His hand finds its way to his face, rubbing over his eyes, as he walks over to the window and the stunning view of the brick wall next to theirs. “We’ll get a new bed, should have one for you before I leave anyways. Till training I’ll take the floor.” 

He tells himself his eyes are tired. He tells himself his mind is his racing. He tells himself that the bricks getting harder to count and the wet his face suddenly feels are two separate problems. 

“If anyone should be taking the floor, it’s me,” Steve finally replies, voice small in the way he only allows when he isn’t given a choice. 

_Have some balls, Barnes. Lord only fucking knows all the things you are, want to add coward to the resume?_

Bucky takes a breath so deep into his lungs that his chest feels ready to split a seam on his shirt before rubbing his cheeks against the edge of his sleeve, leaving wet patches in their wake. The floorboard creaks under his foot as he sways with his nerves, the one that Steve always presses on over and over to annoy Bucky into motion in the morning — even when that motion was normally a floundering tackle. 

Steve’s head got the radiator once. There had been blood fucking everywhere, Steve’s body never one to conserve it’s resources when the option of being dramatic loomed near. Bucky had invented a whole new chapter of cuss words as his palm pressed against the blond head in his lap, watching as the red soaked through his fingers. And Steve, well, the idiot had only stopped laughing long enough to wince every now and then. 

In the shower, Bucky’s fingers had trembled as he washed the red off his chest, trying not to remember how Steve had looked, mouth gasping for breath as he buried his face in Buck’s upper thigh in an attempt to escape his admonishment, _“You could be dying here. Can you try to take this seriously?”_

Bucky turns around to face the center of their apartment, finding Steve’s face a mirror of the same abyss inside of himself. It’s not right, Steve feeling so bad as the innocent bystander. Standing there thinking there’s something he oughtta have done. Face full of an apology for something he had no voluntary part in. 

It’s not Steve’s fault Bucky got wired all wrong, it’s not his fault that he smells like home, it’s not his fault that he’s so goddamn perfect, especially in the ways that he isn’t. 

“I know being a martyr is a hobby of yours, Rogers, but I don’t think you can really be held responsible for me turning out a fag.” 

The eyes in front of him go wide in an instant until Steve looks like he belongs in one of those damn cartoons he’s always dragging Bucky to see. His mouth hangs open, just a bit, and he stills until not even a hair is moving despite the breeze rolling in past Bucky’s back. Bucky who’s so busy staring at blue that he almost misses the way Steve’s hands are clenched on either side of his small frame, knuckles blaring white even on his ivory skin. 

Steve’s shoes, two sizes too big because he refuses to wear kids’, come down with an unusually determined thump as he takes one step forward, the noise triggering something inside of Buck. Something that feels just like terror. Steve takes another step and another, face cemented into its decisive scowl. 

It’s a small room, even with Steve’s short leg span, and Bucky really only has time to think, _The only time Steve Rogers throws the first punch and I’m on the other side of it,_ before he drops his head, just slightly, willing to give his friend the dignity of not having to jump. When Steve fists his collar, yanking him down a few more inches, Bucky closes his eyes and loosens his jaw — knowing that the brat’s fingers will thank him for it later. 

Only. The touch that comes isn’t from the left but straight on, a pressure suddenly resting against his forehead following a _thud_ of meeting that feels far too gentle to be any reasonable form of attack. He opens an eye, just barely, to find himself winking at Steve. 

Steve’s forehead pressed against his own. Steve’s breath on his mouth. Steve’s eyes, blurry from the closeness, staring at his. 

“You better not be pulling something,” and Bucky’s never heard Steve sound so scared. 

He’s watched Steve watching his mother die. Rounded the corner just in time to pull four grown men off of the kid. Once found him burning up so bad with a flu that the guy had sweated out his body weight, still shivering like the last autumn leaf on the branch, replying to Bucky’s offer to pay for a doctor with a delirious smirk and a, _“What for? I’ve had sneezing fits worse than this.”_

Bucky has never, in all of it, heard the tremor that lives in Steve’s vocal cords now. 

His hands find Steve’s shoulders, sliding up the nothing between them, to steady himself. The shake in Steve’s words blooming in about every muscle group that Bucky’s got. Opening both eyes only gives him the back of Steve’s eyelids to look at, and he licks his lips as he wonders what it means that he hasn’t hit him. 

That Steve hasn’t _left._

“What the hell kind of joke would that even be?” The scoff that carries the last syllable sends Bucky’s chin forward as his shoulders sag with the loss of air in his lungs. His nose slots to the right of Steve’s. Steve’s whose is always just slightly pink with a cold or allergies or rubbed raw from one of the former in a rare time of health. It feels cool against Bucky’s skin, bright against the too warm all over he currently feels. 

His voice doesn’t even sound like his when it pitches downwards towards a whispered bass, “You hear the one about the all American male that falls head over heels for the dame of his dreams? They say love is blind and it must be, what with her having a name like Steve—” 

Steve’s always been stronger than he looks, can be stronger than he even is sometimes, despite the theoretical validity. Bucky’s seen the runt hold his ground in a 3 on 1 longer than someone twice his size ought to last, watched him carry his sick mother around like nothing despite her being nearly his full weight, and he believes that Steve could kick down a concrete wall if the right thing to do was on the other side of it. 

So Bucky knows when Steve pulls back — before the fingers even wrap so tight in his collar that he almost starts choking from it — that he’s outmatched here, despite what it may look like to a stranger. He’s still waiting for the punch, for the yelling, for the lecture, when Steve’s other hand finds a place on his cheek so gently his eyes open again from the shock of it. 

“Knock, knock,” Steve says, voice light in a way Bucky’s may never be again. 

He stares at Steve, eyes wide and burning from a desire to blink that he just can’t grant, his own gaze flicking from iris to iris looking for the trail of breadcrumbs. Steve, for his part, only looks more impatient when an answer doesn’t immediately come, Bucky having absolutely no idea how long he stands there, staring, his measurement of time being replaced solely with the pounding of his own heartbeat that’s hammering too fast to count off. 

With a flick of blond eyebrows upward, Steve somehow manages to pry a, “Who’s there?” out of him, finally. 

“It’s just me, Buck,” Steve answers softly, continuing before Buck can get a word in, “and you’re a moron,” before yanking him down with all the muscle the guy has. 

Steve kisses with the same skill level that he tells jokes with, to the exact beat that he dances, and as smoothly as he runs. Practically, it may be the worst kiss Bucky’s ever been one half of. But his lips are as soft as they are pink and the sound Steve makes when Buck’s tongue presses to the seam of them is the intersection of a prayer and a sin. 

It feels like the time Steve had woken him up with a rap on his window, 2AM and five winters ago now, right when Sarah had first gotten bad and long before they knew she was headed down a one way street. Neither had said anything as Bucky climbed out onto the fire escape, arms draped in blankets, as they tried to kick a corner of their world free from the snow. Steve had looked the kind of tired that’s about to snap bones and even Bucky hadn’t been cruel enough to tease him for it, ignoring the fuss the blond made about the arm wrapping around him, pulling Steve’s uncoated frame into the warmth of his side. Some traffic could still be heard down below and the flurries hadn’t quite given up the storm and the two New Yorkers sat there pretending there were stars to see through the light of the street lamps and the cover of clouds. 

By inches Steve’s head had found his shoulder, soft hair scraping against his stubble and the warm breath floating over his throat was slow and winding like a serenade. 

Kissing Steve feels the same. Sharp like a frostbitten nose, the world an odd kind of distant, and a blooming heat made just by the two of them. 

Sliding tongues, caressing hands, scraping teeth and permitting lips. 

It feels like a love song.

* * *

**_1941, December 24th, 11:52pm_ **

_The beginning (Again)_

“It’s Christmas,” Bucky pleads, insistently into the nape of a profoundly soft neck. 

“Not quite,” Steve only laughs back, trying to push Buck away as he pretends not to be ticklish. As if Buck would fall for that. “And besides, you’ve been using that excuse for getting your way all day.” 

“Not all day,” he replies, removing his face if only to nudge at the chest in front of him, attempting to shove Steve backwards towards the pillows. “I also used the fact that you somehow elbowed me in the balls while jerking me off yesterday —” 

“Everyone says they want you to be fully committed until you send them the bill.” 

“— _and_ that I’m leaving in three days.” 

Steve sighs, rolling his eyes even as he relents, laying himself out. “For training. You’ll be back in six weeks.” 

Bucky hums happily as he swings his left thigh over the slender hips, ensuring that Steve’s compliance is reinforced. “Not if I die,” he singsongs, leaning down to meet the acquaintance of Steve’s prominent collarbone. 

“I think the whole point of boot camp is to teach you how _not_ to do that,” he grumbles back, though Bucky doesn’t need to see his face in order to feel the smile Steve’s wearing. 

“You never know, Rogers. I could be made an example of,” though at the sound of the responding snort he forces his mouth to release the nipple it’s currently working on. He wants to actually be looking at Steve when he asks, “But seriously, if you really don’t want me to — tell me.” 

And that just makes Steve go wonderfully red. 

“I’m just saying, Buck, you got a lot of teeth. You’ve never laid any groundwork for the belief that you’re actually capable of controlling that mouth.” And maybe Bucky letting his incisors scrape across Steve’s nipple isn’t the greatest defensive move but the moan it elicits seems to be a point in his favor. 

“Haven’t I been good?” he asks, before Steve’s eyes even reopen. 

“You not about to bring Santa —” 

“I didn’t ask for anything else this year,” he insists, tongue finding that place at the center of Steve’s chest that, oddly, makes him go crazy. Steve’s fingers are in his hair, thumb brushing over his cheek, before the guy can remember to be annoyed with him. 

“Most guys,” Steve begins, even as his hips roll against Buck’s ass, “would ask to be on the receiving end of something like this.” 

“Well doesn’t that just make you the luckiest fella in all of New York.” 

And it does figure, Steve’s only just started kissing well enough that Buck’s no longer choking on his tongue, only for him to turn right around and ask for something else to gag on. 

When Steve sighs for real, Buck sits back up, staring down at him with what he hopes is a neutral expression. Though it’s not easy to manage, what with two naked erections in such a small square footage. 

It’s a game, one they’ve been playing since childhood. Steve will pretend that everything is wrong except for the thing that actually is and Bucky will poke and prod until he gets bored which is when they’ll have the stare off. Bucky’s record on this is already phenomenal, and with him holding the advantage of being able to, subtly, grind back against Steve’s interested party — it’s almost not a fair fight. 

He cocks an eyebrow as he goes to push back a second time, when — 

“What if I taste weird?” 

The bubble bursts so suddenly that Bucky’s forced to blink away the residue of it. An unintelligent _what?_ leaves him before he can get out the more inclusive question of, “How would I know what weird tastes like?” 

Steve, clearly not having an answer for that, barges onwards, “And what if, when I go to do it, I’m no good at it?” 

“At the risk of repeating myself, how would I know if you’re no good at it?” 

“You’ve never — ?” 

Buck cuts him off with a sharp shake of his head. “Besides, should I be offended by the implication that you assume I’ll be any better?” 

Another, this time whine filled, sigh. “You’re good at everything, Buck.” 

“You called my poetry, and I’m quoting you, _‘reprehensible.’_ ” 

Which at least earns him a laugh, if not an apology. “Yeah, well with all your talking, your tongue could probably bench press me so I feel a bit at a disadvantage.” 

“Is this a tongue thing?” Bucky asks, his voice pitching higher with sincerity. “See, at least you know that much. I was putting all my chips on suction.” 

It’s another win that Steve’s still smiling, his hands finding Bucky’s thighs, one finger tracing the crest of his hip bone when he responds, sarcastically, “As if basing this on lung capacity helps my chances,” before completely changing his tune. “I thought you and Janine —” 

But Buck cuts him off again, another quick shake. Only this time, Steve’s not interested in a lane change. “You had told me she brought it up, around your third month together.” 

And he really, really shouldn’t be so pleased that Steve remembers the specifics. That something like jealousy still lingers there, if his tone is transparent. 

“She did.” 

Steve just stares at him, expression fixed, and it’s clearly Bucky’s turn to fold. 

“We went out and all, there was a plan to do it, I guess, but she wanted to go for a walk after the movie and time just sort of got away from us and I had to get home. She wasn’t exactly pleased with me, as if it were my fault she wouldn’t look at my watch, and she wouldn’t even see me again,” hoping that half the truth still counts as honest. 

Steve continues to look at him, scanning his face for the string that’ll pull the rest of the curtain down, knowing there’s a borough sized hole in his story. Curfews had barely been a suggestion in the Barnes household, him spending so much of his time at Steve’s that it was impossible for his mother to really pin him for it either way, and they had all given up the charade by high school. And even if they hadn’t, the chances Buck would forfeit something he wanted for the sake of keeping a rule he didn’t agree with — Steve’d be an idiot to buy it. 

Bucky follows the trend Steve’s set and sighs. “You had that infection in your lungs, you’d been coughing for weeks and it finally turned bloody. I knew your mom had a shift at the hospital, and I wanted to be there before she left, so you wouldn’t be alone. You were so out of it from the meds they gave you — I think Joan Crawford coulda been holding your hand and you wouldn’t have noticed,” he shrugs. “But it made me feel better.” 

“You…” Steve blinks at him. “You could have been… and instead…” 

He huffs out a chuckle, knowing what it must sound like. “I mean,” he says, around a self deprecating grin, “I _did_ get flemmed up on and that’s probably nearly as fun.” 

One second, Buck’s sitting on his haunches, drawing lazy patterns on the soft skin of Steve’s lower abdomen, and the next his shoulders are hooked so fiercely they’ll definitely bruise, being pulled down with a forceful series of tugs. 

“Just kiss me,” Steve demands, mouth already doing the work. “Just — I want you to but — just kiss me first.” 

Bucky happily complies, apparently in need of a tongue warm up anyways, trying not to ruin the whole thing by smiling too wide. He kisses Steve until his muscles loosen with slack, until he’s pushing up against him, looking for friction. He keeps kissing Steve, down his neck and chest, paying his respects to both erect buds as he passes by, onto the little well of his bellybutton. Until he’s mouthing the swoop of his pelvis, Steve burning warm against his cheek. 

Bucky takes him in hand, waiting for Steve to come back from a hiss, and tries to look smug even as he says, “Here goes nothing.” 

It’s barely a moment before Steve’s palms are bracketing his face, fingers trembling in time with his hips, as he obviously fights to not simply fuck Bucky’s mouth. And Bucky — he quickly learns that the tongue has _everything_ to do with it, worth the gagging that results when he presses just right below the head and Steve nearly catapults them off the bed. 

_“Fuck,”_ Steve actually swears. “Sorry… Bucky… Please… Sorry… _Bucky…_ ” sounding as much like a man lost in prayer than the man losing his mind that he currently is. 

Bucky’s attempt to console him in the form of an encouraging moan doesn’t help anything. Or, helps far too much. 

“Shit, Buck,” and really, Bucky’s about to lose it himself just from the tone of Steve’s voice, before his commentary even collapses into nonsense. 

Steve comes with a stuttered warning, his thumb sweeping across the sensitive skin under Bucky’s left eye, his head tilting back against the pillows at the last second even as he clearly fights to keep eye contact. He doesn’t yell or pull Bucky down, his legs going lax instead of thrusting upwards. Steve comes the exact same way that he loves, without demand. 

The taste is new, Bucky lost to find a fitting comparison, and he can’t help thinking of the first ever time he got talked into trying a purple cow at the soda joint. It had felt odd on his tongue, an array of flavors he couldn’t quite pin down at first, and he kept insisting that he wasn’t sure whether he liked it or not — until his straw gurgled, announcing that his glass had been emptied in under three minutes. Steve doesn’t taste anything like a purple cow, but Bucky still finds himself licking the corners of his mouth, searching for more, just the same way he had then. 

He really does think about asking Steve if it’s okay to kiss him, but the point becomes a bit moot when he’s dragged up Steve’s body by the man himself, sucking Bucky’s tongue into his own mouth with such fervor that he instantly has no idea what the kid had been going on about suction woes for. 

“I can —” 

And Bucky appreciates the offer, truly, if only any part of him planned on lasting long enough for it to be worth anyone’s while. He swallows the rest of it as he grinds down, Steve’s legs navigating their way around his hips, pulling him close and against him. It’s sweaty and graceless and a brilliant thing when Bucky comes between them, Steve’s name being spoken onto his own lips. 

He moves, imperceptibly, barely enough so that Steve’s lungs have a fighting chance, burying his face under Steve’s jaw, and licking a stripe across the throbbing pulse point. The arm around him holds him nearer as the fingers on Steve’s other hand press to his mouth like a blessing. And it’s easier than it’s ever been, just to breathe. 

“Hey, Steve?” he asks, deciding something. Sleep has already begun to toe through the door, and he should probably consider himself lucky just to get Steve’s _mmm?,_ but the idea of waiting suddenly seems like a disservice. It has to be after midnight by now. 

“I love you,” he mumbles against the skin Steve’s throat. 

“You know, I managed to figure that out,” Steve responds, tugging gently at the longer hair that the Army will soon rid Bucky of. “What with you harping on me constantly.” 

“Right,” Bucky says, voice impossibly sure given the fact that his heart is still racing, possibly worse than before. “But I wanted to make sure you know I’ll be back. After training, if they don’t kill me, that is. And then after I single handedly win the war — not that you won’t be there soon, of course.” 

“Of course,” Steve only murmurs back, though the edge of the words are a little more crisp. Suspicion doing its job as an awakening service. 

“And then, I was thinking— ” 

“Bucky,” he warns, finding the wrist that bares Bucky’s watch and tapping it, in lieu of a complete sentence. 

But Steve’s impatience is unable to shake where Bucky’s resolve has wound itself to, unwilling to deny right when it’s right in front of his face. He’s done that enough on their old set of tracks, he’s promised to lay this new one with clearer lines and destinations they both have need for. Sometimes getting there involves a detour, and Lord knows they’ve taken some, but sometimes getting there means getting out and clearing the rails. 

He stretches out over Steve’s chest in a valiant reach for the window sill, batting behind the curtain and finding the small somethings behind it, curling his fist closed to carefully shield its contents. Pulling back to his side of the mattress, he props himself up on an elbow, letting his chest press against Steve’s ribs — Steve who seems to understand that the moment has slid under a microscope and scoots himself into sitting up, unwilling to miss anything. 

Bucky takes a breath before gracelessly shoving one of the cold bits of metal into Steve’s hand. And Steve just stares at it, eyes wide and fixed, as if it may disappear if he’s not a diligent guard. 

It’s enough to push Bucky into an explanation that he really ought to have planned out better. 

“I don’t even think they’re silver all the way through,” he breaks the silence. “It was all I could really justify.” Continuing, when Steve just nods, “I figured you could keep it on your keys, if you don’t think you should wear it. Or your tag chain, when you come meet me in Europe. You could say it was your Dad’s, if anyone asked. And me,” Bucky adds, waving his own, “I could do the same.” 

And it’s more than Bucky should really expect of him, that he gets out another, _“Bucky,”_ in the cloak of a brand new, wavering, tone. 

“You told me to wait. Till I found someone that I was really sure of. And I just figured,” Bucky shrugs, clearing his throat as his eyes start to burn, “why keep waiting if I already did?” 

“I got you stamps,” Steve grumbles, still staring at the thing where it lay in his palm. Eyes snapping up at Bucky’s responding laugh. “For Christmas. You bought me a ring and I got you a book of _stamps_ so you’d write to me.” 

Steve’s smile is sincere enough to be believed even if it’s still caked in shock, his eyes shining bright even in their one bulbed lamp. He looks happy despite Bucky’s stupidity. 

“Credit where it’s due, romantic _and_ practical,” Bucky says, resting his chest against Steve’s shoulder. As good a vantage point as any to watch Steve slip the band on, grinning against his clavicle when it stays on easy, still loose enough to spin. 

But Steve just shakes his head, his voice still toying with making a fuss, “I’ve been out courted by James Barnes, unbelievable.” 

“Most people just go with a simple yes or no, you know?” 

“Most people get asked a question,” is Steve’s quick response. “And I’m wearing it, aren’t I?” 

“Hey, Steve?” Bucky starts again, getting the same mumbled prompting he had before. “Want to be stuck with me?” 

Steve’s laugh is full and rumbles his chest and Bucky burrows his face into the sound of his lungs working, his blood moving, all capped by his obvious cheer. He rides it out, soaking it in, positive this moment would be worth it alone, even if he should be suprised by a no that he knows won’t follow. 

“I suppose,” is somehow made to sound like a sonnet on Steve’s tongue as he finds the means to kiss Bucky’s head, even at an impossible angle. 

The ring gets swiped from where it’s been warming in Bucky’s palm before Steve attempts to put it on him, another scoff leaving him at the state of it on the proper finger. Though he doesn’t say anything as he tries another one, probably understanding that sizing Steve’s had been his wallet’s priority and unwilling to lecture him about it at this exact moment. 

It’s still a tad too big on Bucky’s middle finger, but it slips on with ease and stays there, the coolness of the metal an acute sensation against the heat of his skin, still warmed from adrenaline. His mouth feels dry as he stares down at the new shine, neither saying anything as Steve forces him back by a few inches, pulling Bucky in for another kiss, soft and gentle and full of quiet understanding. 

Bucky lays there, his senses burning in their own little way, the world looking a strange bit brighter. The air sweeter. The chest below him adopting his pattern of breathing, until he just feels like a part of something much bigger than himself. 

It’s going to be one hell of a ride, no matter how they get through this. War may not be kind, but peace wasn’t either — not for men like them. Moments like these were a fixed star to steer by, imperative in a world that could be so undefined. Lines could be blurred, your heading made to be unfocused, if you allowed your own true north to be lost. Remembering them in the worst of it, that’d have to be step number one. 

Bucky wakes up the next day to a white Christmas morning, warm and engaged, and stupid with cheer. It’s the first to go on the list of things he’s sure of.

**Author's Note:**

> <3 Thanks for reading, you can find me over at my highly underused tumblr, [GrumpyBonesy.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/grumpybonesey)
> 
> Be kind to yourself, and to each other.


End file.
